What’s Law Got to Do with It? Crisis, Growth, Inequality and the Alternative Futures of Legal Thought
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Tamara Lothian
Abstract
The most striking economic and political fact of the past forty years has been the dramatic increase in economic and political inequality throughout the advanced economies. This Article considers this development as an occasion to explore the contribution of contemporary law and legal thought to the problem of inequality. I focus on two main themes: the naturalization of the present institutional form of the regulated market economy, and the naturalization of the present low-energy form of democracy. I argue that in each case, the absence of structural vision in law prevents us from understanding the sources of and remedies for inequality. We must rescue the insight from the compromise and begin to develop a better way of thinking about law and the economy, if we are to understand and address the rise of inequality. Therefore, three programmatic implications are suggested in this Article regarding three domains: politics, production and finance.
© 2017 by Theoretical Inquiries in Law
Articles in the same Issue
- Theoretical Inquiries in Law
- Introduction
- International Tax and Global Justice
- How Charitable Is the Charitable Contribution Deduction?
- Inequality Rediscovered
- Competence, Desert and Trust — Why are Women Penalized in Online Product Market Interactions?
- Income Inequality: Not Your Usual Suspect in Understanding the Financial Crash and Great Recession
- The New Inequality of Old Age: Implications for Law
- Forces of Federalism, Safety Nets, and Waivers
- Putting Distribution First
- What’s Law Got to Do with It? Crisis, Growth, Inequality and the Alternative Futures of Legal Thought
- In Memory of Tamara Lothian
Articles in the same Issue
- Theoretical Inquiries in Law
- Introduction
- International Tax and Global Justice
- How Charitable Is the Charitable Contribution Deduction?
- Inequality Rediscovered
- Competence, Desert and Trust — Why are Women Penalized in Online Product Market Interactions?
- Income Inequality: Not Your Usual Suspect in Understanding the Financial Crash and Great Recession
- The New Inequality of Old Age: Implications for Law
- Forces of Federalism, Safety Nets, and Waivers
- Putting Distribution First
- What’s Law Got to Do with It? Crisis, Growth, Inequality and the Alternative Futures of Legal Thought
- In Memory of Tamara Lothian
